The Company

by Robert Littell

  “How can you be sure he won’t slit ours?”

  “You can’t.” Manny patted the shoulder holster under his bush jacket. “Which is why I keep Betsy around.”

  Honking nonstop at bicycles and mobilettes and donkey carts and men pulling wheelbarrows filled with television sets or air conditioning units or electric typewriters, the driver turned west onto the Grand Trunk Road. They passed an ancient German bus, its red paint faded to a washed-out pink, the original sign (“Düsseldorf-Bonn”) still visible above the front window, and several diesel trucks whose bodies had been repaired so often they resembled old women who had had one face lift too many. Manny pointed at the road ahead. “Khyber Pass starts twenty or so kilometers down there—Darius’s Persians, Alexander’s Greeks, Tamerlane’s Tartars, Babur’s Moguls all came through here.”

  “Now it’s our turn,” Anthony said.

  Infantrymen armed with automatic rifles waved the car to a stop at a checkpoint. At the side of the road, a soldier in the back of a Toyota pickup truck trained a needle-thin machine gun on the Chevrolet. “Pakis,” Manny murmured. “They control the road but their authority ends fifty meters on either side of it. Beyond that it’s the mountain tribesmen who rule the roost.”

  “Shenasnameh,” a Pak subaltern with the waxed whiskers and long sideburns of a British sergeant major barked. “Identity papers.”

  Manny produced a fistful of crisp twenty-dollar bills from a pocket and cracked the window enough to pass them through. The Pak soldier took the money and, moistening a thumb, slowly counted it. Satisfied, he saluted and waved the car through.

  Smugglers’ Bazaar, a warren of shack-like stalls selling everything under the sun, was swarming with tribesmen in shalwar qamiz—the traditional Afghan long shirt and baggy trousers. Wherever Anthony looked there was evidence of war: men with missing limbs hobbled on wooden crutches, a teenage girl tried to flag down a passing taxi with the stump of an arm, Pajero Jeeps crammed with bearded mujaheddin brandishing weapons roared off toward the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan, makeshift ambulances filled with the wounded and the dying raced with screaming sirens back toward Peshawar. In an empty lot between shacks, gun dealers had spread their wares on tarpaulins. There were neat rows of Israeli Uzis and American M-1s and both the Russian and Chinese versions of the AK-47, and every kind of pistol imaginable. Two Syrians had set up World War II machine guns on straw mats. Next to them, on another straw mat, a man wearing the dark flowing robes of a desert Bedouin was selling camouflage fatigues, cartridge belts and black combat boots. Mules loaded with green ammunition boxes were tied to a fence near a trough filled with muddy water. Afghan warriors with assault rifles slung over their shoulders strolled through the open-air market, inspecting weapons and haggling over the prices.

  The Chevrolet turned onto a pitted side lane and bumped its way down it to a two-story wooden house with a sign over the door that read, in English: “Last drinkable tea before the Khyber Pass.” Manny signaled for the bodyguards to remain with the car. He and Anthony crossed a narrow bridge over what smelled like an open sewer. “We’re here to meet the Lion of Panjshir, Ahmed Shah Massoud,” Manny explained. “He’s a Tadzhik from the Panjshir Valley, which knifes north of Kabul all the way to the Tadzhik border. His people bear the brunt of the fighting against the Russians—the six other resistance groups spend a lot of their time fighting each other.”

  “So why don’t we funnel the arms directly to him?” Anthony asked.

  “The Pak Intelligence Directorate, the ISI, cornered the market on handing out American largess. Basically, they have other fish to fry—they want the war to end with a fundamentalist Afghanistan to strengthen their hand against India.”

  “I can see I’ve got a lot to learn,” Anthony said.

  “The Company has a lot to learn,” Manny said. “I hope the report you’ll write will open their eyes to a great many things.”

  Inside, a woman dressed in a shroud-like burqa squatted before a chimney and worked the bellows, heating the kettles suspended above the wood fire. In an alcove off to one side, an itinerant dentist was drilling into the tooth of an Afghan fighter who had come through the Khyber Pass with Massoud the night before. A teenage boy pedaling a bicycle welded into a metal frame ran the lathe that turned the drill in the dentist’s fist. “Don’t get a toothache here,” Manny warned. “They fill cavities with molten shotgun pellets.”

  They climbed the narrow steps to the private room on the second floor. Two of Massoud’s bodyguards stood outside the door. For some reason both of them had ear-to-ear grins splashed across their faces. The taller of the two cradled a vintage German MP-44 in his arms, the other had an enormous Czech pistol tucked into his waistband and held a small bamboo cage containing a yellow canary.

  “The canary is the Afghan resistance’s early warning system,” Manny said.

  “Against what?”

  “The bird’ll keel over at the first whiff if the Russian use chemical or biological weapons.”

  Massoud, a thin, bearded man with a direct gaze and an angelic smile, rose off the prayer rug to greet the Company’s Chief of Station at Peshawar. “Manny, my friend,” he said, shaking his hand warmly and drawing him into the room. He gestured toward the prayer rugs scattered on the floor. “I am deeply glad to see you again.”

  Manny saluted Massoud in Dari, then switched to English so his American friend could follow the conversation. “Meet a comrade, Anthony McAuliffe,” Manny said. Massoud nodded once at him but didn’t offer to shake hands. As the visitors settled cross-legged onto the rugs, a teenage girl with a shawl draped over her head shyly approached and filled two tin cups with khawa, the watery green tea that was standard fare in the tribal area.

  Massoud made small-talk for a quarter of an hour—he brought Manny up to date on the shifting front lines inside Afghanistan and the Soviet order of battle, gave him the names of fighters he knew who had been killed or wounded in the three months since they last met, described a daring attack he had led against a Soviet air base in which three helicopters had been blown up and a Russian colonel had been taken prisoner. Manny wanted to know what had happened to the Russian. We offered to trade him for the two mujaheddin who were taken prisoner in the raid, Massoud said. The Russians sent them back alive and strapped to the saddles of pack animals, each with his right hand cut off at the wrist. Massoud shrugged. We returned their colonel missing the same number of hands.

  At dusk, wood-burning stoves were lighted in the stalls and a sooty darkness settled over the bazaar area. Massoud accepted another cup of green tea as he got down to business. “It is this way, Manny,” he began. “The modern weapons that you give to the Pakistani Intelligence Directorate finish up in the hands of the Pakistani Army, which then passes down its old hardware to the mujaheddin. We go into battle against the Soviet invaders at a great disadvantage. The situation has gotten worse in the last months because the Russians are starting to employ spotter planes to direct the firepower of their helicopters.”

  “There are portable radars that could detect the helicopters.”

  Massoud shook his head. “They fly through the valleys at the height of the tops of trees and fall upon us without warning. Our anti-aircraft guns, our machine guns are of no use against their armor plating. A great many mujaheddin have been killed or wounded this way. Radar will not improve the situation. Heat-seeking Stingers, on the other hand—” He was referring to the shoulder-fired ground-to-air missile that could blow planes or helicopters out of the sky at a distance of three miles.

  Manny cut him off. “Stingers are out of the question. We’ve asked our Pentagon people—they’re afraid the missiles will wind up in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists once the war is won.”

  “Give them to me, Manny, and the fundamentalists will not rule Afghanistan when the Russians are defeated.” Massoud leaned forward. “The group which defeats the Russians will decide the future of Afghanistan—if the United States of America wants a free and
democratic state, you must support me.”

  “Your Tadzhiks are a minority ethnic group. You know as well as I do that we can’t give you high-tech weapons without upsetting the delicate balance between the various resistance groups.”

  “If not the Stinger,” Massoud pleaded, “then the Swiss Oerlikon—it has the fire power to bring down the Russian helicopters.”

  “The Oerlikon is the wrong weapon for a guerrilla war. Its armor-piercing ammunition is expensive, the guns themselves are very sophisticated and require complicated maintenance. Our people say the Oerlikon wouldn’t be operational after the journey over the Khyber Pass.”

  “So what is left?” Massoud asked.

  “Conventional weapons.”

  “And the most conventional of all weapons is the surrogate who fights your war for you.”

  “It’s your country that was occupied by the Russians. It’s your war.” “Bleeding the Soviets is in your interest—“

  “Is there anything else on your shopping list?”

  Throwing up a palm in defeat, Massoud pulled a scrap of paper from the pocket of his woolen pants. “Medical supplies, especially anesthesia and antibiotics. Artificial limbs, also—unless, of course, your Pentagon worries that they will end up on the bodies of fundamentalists when the Russians are defeated.”

  Manny scribbled notes to himself in a small spiral notebook. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

  Massoud rose gracefully to his feet. “I, too, will do what I can, Manny.” He threw an arm over Manny’s shoulder and steered him off to one side. “I have heard it said that the Peshawar KGB rezident, Fet, is trying to establish contact with Islamic fundamentalist groups, for what purpose I do not know. I thought this information would be of interest to you.”

  Manny said thoughtfully, “It is.”

  The Lion of Panjshir turned to Anthony and regarded him with a cheerless half-smile. “Afghanistan was once an unbelievably beautiful country,” he said. “With the war a kind of gangrene has infected its arteries. Newcomers have a hard time seeing beyond the infection.” The half-smile brightened into a full-blown smile; small lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. “Try anyhow.”

  Anthony stood up. “I will,” he vowed.

  As the Chevrolet passed the airport on the way back to Peshawar, Manny pointed to the runway, visible behind a chain-link fence draped with Turkistan carpets, Bukhara silks and Kurdistan lambskins set out by street vendors. “Gary Powers’s U-2 took off from here in 1960,” he remarked.

  “That’s the year I was born,” Anthony noted.

  “I was thirteen at the time,” Manny said. “I remember Ebby coming back from work looking as if he’d seen a ghost. When Elizabet asked him what’d happened, my father switched on the radio and we listened to the news bulletin in the kitchen—Francis Gary Powers had been shot down by a Soviet ground-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk. That’s when I learned the expression ‘When the shit hits the fan.’”

  They stopped at the fortress-like American consulate in the British Cantonment long enough for Manny to check the incoming traffic, then headed down Hospital Road, turned left onto Saddar and pulled up in the lot behind Dean’s Hotel, the local watering hole for Peshawar’s diplomats and journalists and visiting firemen. The armed chowkidar at the entrance, a clean-shaven Pashtun disfigured with napalm burn scars, recognized Manny and waved him and Anthony in but stopped the two Saudi civilians behind them to inspect their diplomatic passports. Manny led the way through the seedy lobby into the courtyard restaurant, snared a table just vacated by three Pakistanis and ordered an assortment of Chinese appetizers and two Murree beers from the Afghan boy waiting on tables. The appetizers were sizzling on the plates when a young woman with dark hair cut boyishly short slipped uninvited into a vacant chair. She was wearing khaki riding trousers tucked into soft ankle-high boots and a long, tight collarless cotton shirt buttoned up to the soft pale skin of her neck. She plucked some fried lamb from a plate with her fingertips and popped it into her mouth. “What did Massoud have to tell you that I don’t already know?” she demanded.

  “How do you know I saw Massoud?” Manny asked.

  The young woman raised her very dark eyes, which were brimming with laughter. “I heard it from a rabid fundamentalist name of Osama bin Laden when I was drinking watered-down whiskey at the Pearl bar.” She produced a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes and, when the two men declined, stabbed one into her mouth and lit it with a small silver lighter. “Have our paths crossed?” When Manny shook his head no, she said, “Doesn’t surprise me—he loathes the West as much as he loathes Russians, and America symbolizes the West. Bearded guy, thirtyish, gaunt, with a gleam of icy charm where his eyes ought to be. He’s a full-time fund raiser for several of the mujaheddin groups. You guys might want to save string on him—the word on bin Laden is he inherited a few hundred million from his Saudi father and has big plans about how to spend it.”

  Manny flashed a knowing look in Anthony’s direction. “Say hello to Maria Shaath, who has more balls than a lot of her male colleagues. She’s famous for turning to the camera on a battlefield and saying: ‘Afghanistan is a place where armed children with long memories set out to right wrongs done to the great-grandfathers of their grandfathers.’ Maria, meet Anthony McAuliffe.”

  Anthony said, “I’ve seen you on TV.”

  Maria fixed her straightforward gaze on Anthony. “Another spook?” she asked sweetly.

  Anthony cleared his throat. “I’m an attaché at the American consulate.”

  “Yeah, sure, and I’m Maria Callas, come to entertain the mujaheddin at the Khyber Pass with arias from Italian operas.” She turned back to Manny. “He’s green behind the ears—tell him the score.”

  “He’s been flown in to work up a report on the weapon pipeline—the people who pay our salaries want to know how much of what they send to the Pak ISI is getting through to the folks actually shooting at Russians.”

  Maria helped herself to Anthony’s mug of beer, then wiped her lips on the back of her small fist. “I could have saved you the trip out,” she said. “The answer is precious little. Buy me dinner and I’ll let you pick my brain.” And she smiled a tight-lipped smile.

  “Afghanistan is a can of worms,” she said over a bowl filled with what the menu billed as chop suey. “It’s a place where you can trade a copy of Playboy for a bottle of fifteen-year-old Scotch whiskey, and get your throat cut if you’re caught sleeping with your feet pointed toward Mecca. Actually, there are a lot of overlapping wars going on: ethnic wars, clan wars, tribal wars, drug wars, religious wars, the Iranian Shi’ites versus the Afghan Sunni taleb studying the Koran in their Pak medressas versus the Afghan diaspora in the secular universities, Massoud’s Tadzhiks versus everyone, Saudi Wahhabi versus the Iraqi Sunnis, capitalists with a small C versus Communists with a capital C, Pakistan versus India.”

  “You left out the last but not least,” Manny said. “The Afghan freedom fighters versus the Russians.”

  “There’s that war, too, though sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle. Look, the truth of the matter is that the Americans only vaguely understand what’s going on and, more often than not, wind up backing the wrong horse. You need to stop looking for quick fixes to long-term problems.”

  “We’re not going to give them Stinger missiles, if that’s what you mean,” Manny insisted.

  “You will,” Maria predicted. “In the end the itch to get even for Vietnam will overwhelm sweet reason. Then, when the war’s over the bin Ladens will turn whatever weapons you give them against you.”

  Anthony asked, “What would you do if you were the American President?”

  “First off, I’d stop supplying weapons to the former Peugeot salesman who claims to be a descendant of the Prophet. I’d give the cold-shoulder to splinter groups which want to create the perfect Islamic state modeled after the seventh-century Caliphate.”

  “Are you saying Russian rule in Afghanistan is the lesser of two evils
?” Anthony wanted to know.

  “I’m saying you’re laying the groundwork for the next disaster by settling for the quickest solution to the last disaster. I’m saying hang in there. I’m saying the journey isn’t over until you’ve copulated with the camel.”

  Manny pulled a face. “Copulating with a camel is a high price to pay for getting where you’re going.”

  Maria batted her slightly Asian eyes. “Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

  Manny said, “Are you speaking from experience?”

  Marie shot back, “Bilagh!”

  Manny translated for Anthony. “That’s the Persian equivalent of ‘fuck you.’”

  Laughing to herself, Maria went off to mooch a cup of coffee from Hippolyte Afanasievich Fet, the local KGB rezident. Fet, a mournful middle-aged man with sunken cheeks, was the laughing stock of Peshawar because of his uncanny resemblance to Boris Karloff. He was dining at a corner table with his much younger and deliciously attractive wife, and two male members of his staff.

  Maria caught up with Manny and Anthony in the parking lot three quarters of an hour later. “Can I bum a lift back to University Town?” she asked.

  “Why not?” Manny said.

  The two bodyguards squeezed in next to the driver and Maria settled into the back of the car between Manny and Anthony. “What did Boris Karloff have to say?” Manny inquired.

  “Hey, I don’t tell him what you say to me,” she remarked.

  “But he asks?”

  “Of course he asks.”

  Manny got the point. “I withdraw the question,” he said.

  The sun was dipping below the Suleiman Range as the car swung off Jamrud Road west of the airport and cut through the quiet, grid-like streets filled with consulates and plush private homes rented by US-AID officials and Pakistani brass and Afghan resistance leaders. The Company had a high-walled villa sandwiched between the estate of a Pashtun drug dealer and a warehouse filled with artificial limbs. Maria shared a house with half a dozen other journalists one street over. The Chevrolet slowed at an intersection to let a bus filled with children pass. A sign at the side of the road said, in English: “Drive with care and seek help from Almighty Allah.” “There are two kinds of experts in Afghanistan,” Maria was saying. “Those who have been here less than six weeks and those who have been here more than six months.”